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World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

theguardian.com

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Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#61

Post by Radim »

jamcohen wrote: post #35
Radim wrote: post #28

Curious are the ways in which a world born of binary, "carries over" and manifests the very same patterns in broader social settings, into seemingly unrelated levels of abstraction. Similarity across scales. Binary winner-take-all, all-or-nothing markets? There seem to be deeper natural forces at play; the proposed evil divide between the rich and poor just incidental symptom. Surface ripples in a powerful river.

I think it's just a consequence of the fact that having money enables the acquisition of more money. It explains the long tail in wealth distribution.

Sure, but that's been the case for thousands of years.

The novelty is in the global nature of the competition, the physical and informational proximity that accelerate evolution of patterns. That's what makes them spread so quickly and prominently, across seemingly unrelated scales and disciplines.

Another curious manifestation is how humans are changing the way they treat each other, how they structure their (human) relationships. Did humans tame the computers, or did computers tame the humans?

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#62

Post by addicted »

krona wrote: post #50
bitwize wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's especially false in the US, because social mobility is so poor for such a "free" state.

From 2001 to 2007 (just 6 years), the proportion of US households that left their income quintile were (starting at the lowest quintile) 44%, 61%, 58%, 55%, and 34%. Even by global standards that's quite high income mobility.

The choices of year bounds are interesting to say the least.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#63

Post by balthasar »

tw1010 wrote: post #51

So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.

The riches they amass come from exploiting the people. Its not something that should be taken lightly.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#64

Post by crusso »

staticassertion wrote: post #53
tw1010 wrote: post #51

So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Katy Perry has a massive amount of political power compared to you as well. How should we handle her and other celebrities? How about unions and union bosses? News media heads?

If we're going to be fair, shouldn't we control anyone at all who has influence?

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#65

Post by enraged_camel »

tw1010 wrote: post #51

So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.

>>Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down.

Wrong. Inequality of wealth results in inequality of political representation and therefore power. And even though wealth is not zero-sum, power is.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#66

Post by staticassertion »

charlesdm wrote: post #60
staticassertion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Didn't Trump get elected with 1/7th the budget of Hillary Clinton?

I don't think boiling any single political event down to money is going to be meaningful.

I can't imagine anyone denying that lobbyists exist and that large amounts of money can buy you a lot of political power.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#67

Post by staticassertion »

crusso wrote: post #64
staticassertion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Katy Perry has a massive amount of political power compared to you as well. How should we handle her and other celebrities? How about unions and union bosses? News media heads? If we're going to be fair, shouldn't we control anyone at all who has influence?

What is this argument even?

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#68

Post by aalleavitch »

twoodfin wrote: post #2

This article provides paragraph after paragraph of supporting data that the richest have gotten richer, but none that I can see supporting its claim that “billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline”.

Wages have stagnated and the poor are not seeing an equivalent increase in their wealth. Moreover, while the jobs numbers are very high 94% of all jobs added in the last decade have been temp/contract work/self-employment.

https://hbr.org/2017/10/why-wages-arent-growing-in-america

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/8/16112368/pi...

https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created...

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#69

Post by marcosdumay »

coliveira wrote: post #57
marcosdumay wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way simpler. As population grows, the 500 richest people (whoever they are) are expected to get richer even if the wealth distribution does not change. And as the society gets richer, they are expected to get richer too. So, if there is any indication that wealth has been accumulating faster, it is not on the article. And as such, the article is valueless and a complete loss of time.

The indication you're searching for is called wealth inequality. It is a measure of how much more money the richest people have compared to the rest of the population, and it has increased significantly over the years: http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/ There is an economist called Thomas Piketty who has made his name by studying and measuring inequality over the years. Read his book and you w…

Yes, and that's what the article should be talking about. It's not, so it's garbage.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#70

Post by sintaxi »

coliveira wrote: post #27
twoodfin wrote: post #2

This article provides paragraph after paragraph of supporting data that the richest have gotten richer, but none that I can see supporting its claim that “billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline”.

The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…

What do you mean by "allow"? You're getting into sketchy territory there.
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